Steven Barnes Trial

On evening of June 9th 1959 in a small town named Clinton Ontario, a couple of hundred kilometres from London, Ontario, a fourteen year old Steven Truscott gave twelve year old classmate Cheryl ‘Lynne’ Harper a ride home on the crossbars of his bicycle, the pair rode along the Country Road. What occurred after this is still unknown, and is still debated due to the wealth of questionable information from varied sources. Around 11:20pm, Lynne’s father had notified officials of his daughter’s disappearance. Just two days later, Lynne Harper’s body was found in a forested area just next to the County Road. Lynne Harper had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

I feel that this case was somewhat representative of what was discussed in the textbook. The forensics aspects of this case were generally different from the impression of forensics I received from reading the textbook. Despite this fact, I feel that the investigative techniques of this case were similar to what was discussed in the textbook, as well as what has been discussed during lecture.

In this position paper I have chosen Bloodsworth v. State ~ 76 Md.App. 23, 543 A.2d 382 case to discuss on whether or not the forensic evidence that was submitted for this case should have been admissible or not. To understand whether or not the evidence should be admissible or not we first have to know what the case is about.

Steven ran her off the road one morning because Sandra was spreading rumors saying he and his wife were naked having sex on the lawn. Sandra and his other cousin bill had always made fun of and told lies about him which Steven didn’t like. After running her off the road he pulled out his shotgun which was unloaded and pointed it at her. Sandra filed a complaint with the sheriff’s office where her husband worked. Steven was charged with endangering safety regardless of life and a felon in possession of a firearm. While on bail his wife had two twin boys. Sandra had a friend who worked in the sheriff’s office and was in charge of going to the hospital to talk to penny about what happened, her name was Judy Dvorak. As penny described her assailant Judy recalled that her description sounded much like Steven Avery. Sheriff Tom Kocourek then took Stevens mug shot and drew a picture based on it. Judy then took it to Penny to confirm if that was the assailant and she said yes. When better she then picked Steven out of a lineup of men. They then arrested Steven at the age twenty three for sexual assault, attempted murder, and false imprisonment. He was set for thirty two years in

The questionable forensic evidence, the untrustworthy witnesses and the insufficient investigation are all reasons why Steven Truscott should never have been charged with the rape and murder of Lynne Harper. Being charged with something you did not commit is something nobody wants to go through. Evidence, witnesses and the investigation portion is very important for a case to run correctly. It took Steven Truscott 42 years to finally get his name cleared. He went through many trials and hearings to finally get the news one day that he was free to go. Most of his life was taken from him that he will never get back. “They finally got it right after all these years. I am so used to fighting. Now we don’t have to fight anymore.”

His story is quite engaging as he was placed on the death sentence at only fourteen years old in June 1959 of rape and murder of a fellow classmate, arranged to be executed of hanging months after the conviction that he was wrongfully convicted for. Even despite being found not guilty by a jury of the murder of Lynne Harper in 1959, Steven has always claimed he was innocent, though he did not offer his evidence at the original murder trial, the jury did disclose that most of the evidence had been circumstantial. He also even voluntarily submitted to psychiatric probation in prison for truth serum and LSD to help his innocence. There was also no DNA evidence that could have been analyzed in his case. Steven's father, Daniel also had struggled for two decades to clear the name of his

14 year old Steven Truscott gave his classmate Lynne Harper a ride on his bicycle on June 9, 1959. Truscott had dropped her off before they parted ways. Lynne was reported missing later that night, and two days later, her body was found on a nearby farm. She was sexually assaulted and strangled to death. The community was horrified by what happened to this young girl and everyone was determined to find the killer. Immediately, investigators became fixated on Truscott as the prime suspect since he was the last person to see Lynne. They didn’t consider any other suspects, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder. He was arrested 24 hours later, and stood trial as an adult. (Steven Truscott |

After the 15 day trial, the teenager was found guilty, charged with murder and was sentenced to be hanged. He was the youngest death row inmate in Canada. During the trial, Steven was represented by Frank Donnelly. All the evidence that was shown in court was all circumstantial, and was centered on determining the estimated time of Harper's death which implicated Truscott. Another thing they found as evidence was that he had fresh burns on his penis which led to them believing he did rape her.

In the Casey Anthony case Jeff Ashton who is a former state attorney in Orange county Florida, and also the first prosecutor in the United States to get a conviction based on DNA decided to use a new Forensic method in the Anthony case. The smell of death would be the allowed as evidence for the first time ever. In the trunk of Anthony’s car was a stained area on the carpet and an odor. Ashton stated that the smell was that of human decomposition. That piece of carpet was removed, sealed and sent to Dr. Vass, a forensic anthropologist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Voss has been studying human decomposition at the University of Tennessee’s “body farm”.

Early the next morning of December 8th, the lifeless body of Debbie Carter was found strangled in her small apartment. The murder of Debbie Carter flipped this small, rural, bible-belt, town on its head. People were outraged, overwhelmed, and stunned that such a thing could happen in this town to a young, beautiful girl whom everyone had known. This gruesome act put enormous pressure on local law enforcement to find the atrocious criminal. Finger prints, hair, and blood spatter was carefully collected from the scene.

Faber’s testimony was careful and responsible—and not very significant. She could not say how common the automobile fabric that she had examined is, or how many models and brands use it. Nor could she say how likely it was that the fabric from the car would show up on Wilson’s clothes. Faber used no statistics, because there was no way to establish with any precision the probability that the fibres came from the detectives’ car. DNA tests had proved that blood from one of the detectives was on Wilson’s clothes, and based on this fact, as well as on testimony from his accomplice and from Faber, Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death. “Given how much evidence they had in the case, I wasn’t crucial,” Faber told me. “The prosecutors liked the idea of fibre evidence in addition to everything else. Maybe they thought the jury would like it because it was more ‘CSI’-esque.”(thecsieffect)

    A review of false convictions that involved forensic science and can help identify critical lessons for forensic scientists as they perform testing, interpret results, render conclusions, and testify in court from the national institute of justice.

Every year the miscarriage of justice becomes an increasing problem in the United States, due to disquieting issues and crevices within the criminal justice system. Individuals such as William Dillon, have served protracted sentences for deplorable crimes which they did not commit. Over time, innocence group projects’ have exposed wrongful convictions through new advances in forensic science and reforms in the system. Among these advances, contains the evolution of DNA testing and the competence to apply the biology of the body’s cells to resolve crimes. This has produced meaningful changes in the criminal justice field, giving hope that freedom may be near for the wrongly convicted. Still, the battle has yet to be won for many innocent victims

Peter White has defined the term forensic science in two different sense on one is narrower sense and another is wider sense. This wide meaning covers criminal prosecutions in the widest sense, together with patrons and ecological safeguard and physical condition and protection at work, as well as civil proceeding such as violate of agreement and negligence. On the other hand, in universal practice the term is applied more narrowly to use of science in the in the investigation of crime by the police and by the courts as evidence in resolving the issue in any subsequent trial.

The purpose of this article by Garrett (2011) was investigated the problems with invalid and/or unreliable forensic evidence that lead to wrongful convictions by investigating exoneration case, in which faulty forensic evidence was presented. This is important to the fields of law and psychology because forensic evidence is still used in many cases, despite not being the most reliable evidence.